A quarterly newsletter highlighting the most exciting and impactful research and innovation at UC Davis

Feature Story

Global impact of climate change — 10 new insights

Research discoveries continue to provide new evidence into just how far-reaching the impacts of climate change extend. Learn about the latest findings and solutions from teams exploring climate effects on food supply, migration patterns, marine life and more.

Koen Van Rompay, PhD, who was part of a team that pioneered work to stop transmission of HIV in pregnant women, is teaming up with other researchers at the California National Primate Research Center at UC Davis to take on the Zika virus.

When wildfire ripped through two UC Davis natural reserves last summer, scientists conducting research there used the opportunity to study the effects on everything from wildflowers and insects to the impacts of climate change on species recovery.

UC Davis researchers led an international team that used gravitational lensing to obtain snapshots of stars behind a distant galaxy cluster never seen before. The work could help scientists explain how the universe evolved.

Long a global leader in innovations at the nexus of food, health and the environment, UC Davis has launched the Global Tea Initiative to bring the university’s premier research in agriculture, health, science, humanities and social science to bear on the study of tea.

Recipients of the 2016 UC Davis Chancellor’s Innovation Awards include Cristina Davis and Harry Cheng, who were selected for the Innovator of the Year Award. Davis has developed miniature sensors to measure trace chemicals in human breath, targeting a better way to detect and monitor medical conditions like asthma. Cheng has invented a program using robotics and computer programming to get kids excited about math.

Startup is one step closer to creating hand-held device to detect pathogens like E.coli

AstRoNA Biotechnologies, a UC Davis startup emerging from a campus seed-funding program is working to create a hand-held device that can be used to detect a variety of pathogens, including foodborne pathogens like E. coli.

Erin Kinnally, Assistant Research Psychologist at the California National Primate Research Center

Exploring how environment influences behavior and health through genetic expression

Erin Kinnally, Ph.D., has dedicated her career to understanding how early-life experiences shape how we respond to stress and influence our risk for particular disorders later in life. “Two decades ago we thought that mapping the genetic sequence would unlock all of the mysteries of who we are, but it turns out that the structure of our genes doesn’t tell us everything about our health, and certainly doesn’t tell us everything about why our minds work the way they do,” she says.